Blood Drenched Butterfly
by Durriken
Summary: What would happen if Hinata decided she wouldn't take anymore? What if she just...snapped? -Warning-: Rated M for violence.
1. Chapter 1

Blood Drenched Butterfly

Chapter 1: The Beginning

**XXX**

She wasn't quite sure when she had acquired the blade in her hands, nor did she know exactly how she came to be standing just outside the entrance to her father's private chambers….

No one was allowed inside without his consent, and that rule carried a sometimes deadly weight when the sun was absent and darkness overtook the grand halls of the Hyuuga manor. Much like now. Night had claimed the village of Konoha a little more than three hours ago and everything was silent...peaceful….The maids had finished their rounds. The servants were all in bed, as they should be, along with every other member of the Hyuuga clan regardless of their branch.

So why was she wandering the halls so late at night...standing outside her father's door without permission...loosely holding a what appeared to be a katana?

The answer was rather simple and it only took her a second or two of thought before she was smiling so widely her eyes closed, teeth glinting in the gloom.

"That's right," the girl of fourteen whispered, "they need to be freed….All of them. Trapped in their cages day in and day out. They need a key." Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her 'key'. "I'll let them out. _All_ of them…."

With a sound like rustling paper, the doors before her were pulled apart, giving view into a gloriously furnished room, one with plush tatami mats and an elaborately polished table topped with two steaming mugs. She instantly caught the smooth scent of chamomile yet her eyes were drawn to the figure standing just in front of her.

It was a man, a rather tall man with flowing ebony locks and opaque eyes narrowed directly down at her. She watched his lips curl up in a sneer, possibly less than three seconds away from slamming the door in her face.

"Just what business do you have here, Hinata?" and his voice was colder than anything Hinata had ever heard, more akin to a growl.

The heir to the Hyuuga Clan, Hinata Hyuuga, regarded her father with dim eyes, seeing him, yes, but not taking in a single thing about the man other than the subtle loath lining his facial features. Her eyes dropped away from him and moved to the left, able to see her younger sister Hanabi, seated seiza style at the table. She stared back with confusion.

Ah yes...the youngest of the litter, Hanabi, the prodigal child at only seven and already she had quite the masterful hold on their clans inner techniques. Was it any wonder she received such praise, such rewarding smiles and pats on the back? Their father had completely swept Hinata under the rug, treating her like the bug he saw her as so he could devote large helpings of his 'precious' time towards training Hanabi.

Poor thing….She may have bore no 'Seal' like the cadet branch but for all intents and purposes, she was still very much trapped within a cage. And unlike Hinata, her wings weren't broken; she still had a chance to fly. She just needed a key….

Hinata's face split in a smile.

"I asked you a question," Hiashi reiterated, his left brow quirking at his daughters sudden shift in chakra. With just a single smile, the warmth he had grown accustomed to was all but snuffed out, replaced by something that rose the hairs on the back of his neck. He almost winced.

Now completely ignoring her father, Hinata shiftedher weapon to under her arms and mimed covering her eyes to Hanabi. The two of them weren't dreadfully close as sisters but they had sometimes played together during the rare moments where neither of them had schooling, training, or social events to participate in. Those times had been fun.

And Hinata would sorely miss them.

After two more demonstrations, Hanabi, cracking something of a weary smile, lifted her hands and placed them over both eyes.

"Don't open them till I say so," Hinata whispered almost playfully and Hanabi nodded, beginning to smartly hum what sounded like a lullaby under her breath. This struck Hinata as somewhat odd, like her younger sister had an inkling of what was about to happen.

"Hinata!" Her name was practically barked out; Hanabi jumped. "Have you finally lost your hearing along with your skills? I asked what you were doing here...and…." His voice faltered as he finally took in more than his daughter's presence, namely what she was wearing and what she carried.

Replacing her usual bland attire was a pure white robe, one exclusively made for the higher maidens of the Hyuuga clan; the craft that went into such a silken masterpiece left the whole ensemble glistening in the darkness and, being cinched closed around the waist by a sash of the same fabric, it hugged the younger Hyuuga heiress' body quite nicely. As this garment ended midway down her thighs, what covered her legs were a pair of butterfly-themed stockings.

"_Have you lost your mind_?" he roared and that so well-known vein in his temple throbbed to life reminiscent of a worm pulsing under his skin. "That robe—how did you even—and that sword is from our vault of—HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

As her father spouted nothing but pure vitriol, flecks of spit flying from his moth, Hinata felt quite sure that if he could and if she bore one, he would have activated her curse seal without a moment's hesitation. The grip he had on the sliding doors intensified to the point where his fingers splintered the wood; he looked about ready to froth at the mouth….

It was almost like watching an ant bypass a rampaging elephant when Hinata entered the sacred chamber, ducking under her fathers arm and crossing over to Hanabi who still sat with her eyes closed and humming. As Hiashi whirled around, slamming the door closed behind him, Hinata placed a hand over her sister's head. Just touching the child caused a white-hot rage to lance through her being; she almost crushed Hanabi's skull but somehow managed to keep her graze light, continuing to smile as she began to pet her.

"You can open your eyes now," she said gently and when Hanabi did, her orbs looking up into Hinata's beatific face, Hinata lifted the weapon in her hand.

The blade dripped crimson fluid.

"What...is that—" Hanabi tried to ask but then her nose crinkled and she knew what it was.

Hinata felt this was a fair trade off. Being treated so detestably thanks to struggling with the finer points of her hereditary fighting style, it seemed downright childish to blame Hanabi for how her life had turned out. The better _deserved_ to be exalted and praised, given more time than the broken and the crippled. Hanabi was the better...and Hinata was the crippled. But she'd worked out a plan.

And as her father began to waver where he stood, the first part of her plan had come to fruition.

Hanabi never broke eye contact with Hinata even as their father crashed to the ground on one knee, an arm slung around his waist. Hinata glanced over her shoulder, the sight of her father spilling a copious amount of cardinal liquid over his trembling bottom lip doing nothing to deter her smile; it only widened. She spotted the splotch of blood his hand desperately tried to cover but he might as well have been trying to plug a crack in the sink for all the fluids spilling over his fingers.

"You...y-you…." Where even the simplest words failed him, his eyes, red-rimmed and watering, conveyed the questions his floundering lips couldn't get out: _why…?_

She didn't expect such a question to mean so much; it was just a single word and yet Hinata dove like a panther, crossing to her father in two long strides and snatching him up by the collar of his once spotless robes. Hatred unlike anything Hinata had ever experienced ignited the blood in her veins, caused her kekkai genkai to flare to life—his chakra system, weak though it was with his waning life, lit up like the streets of Konoha.

"WHY?" she screeched, and her tone was painful to the ears, so far away from her normally timid coo. Without thought, she reared back two fingers, joined to make a spear of sorts that were outlined in a visible hue of chakra, violent and staticky.

"YOU'RE USELESS, HINATA!" It was an insult she screamed out, one of her father's favorites that she heard at least once a day, sometimes said after a training session and sometimes said in passing accompanied with a soul-rending glare even when she hadn't done anything wrong—and she dug hers fingers into his stomach, tearing through the thin flap of skin that comprised of his naval.

Blood blew out around her hand, she heard him roar in pain, felt him convulse against her but Hinata dug deeper, disrupting his solar plexus chakra flow with a violent burst of her own—

"YOU'RE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THE MAIN BRANCH, HINATA!"

She wrenched her fingers from their cavity, flinging blood about the chamber, and struck again, her digits acting as a surgical scalpel as they sliced into a point just between his pectoral muscles; she forced pure hatred into his heart chakra, watching as his eyes began to roll, a mixture of spittle and blood spilling past his lips. And through his screaming she could distinctly hear Hanabi in the background, humming her lullaby as before….

"GIVE UP BECOMING A PROPER SHINOBI, HINATA!"

Her pristine robes had been tainted now, covered in deep splotches of her father's secretions. The coppery stench of blood was overwhelming, it invaded her nostrils yet she inhaled like she might get high from it. She certainly felt on cloud nine as she pulled her fingers free, snagging flesh with her erratic chakra and taking rinds with her—his yelling was persistent, a testament to the agony being dealt to him yet Hinata knew she could never deal enough to match all the mental and physical torture he had put her through.

And that, more than anything, upset her.

Releasing him, she threw back both arms, her mouth open in a scream that rivaled the ones gurgled up by her father. She gave him no chance to move and launched herself forward, filling as much chakra as she could into her palms before ramming them into her father's eyes. The yells died away almost instantly and Hinata felt those two moist orbs that so detested her burst against her hands, felt something within her father's cranium rupture with a sickening _spurt_….

As Hanabi's lullaby lowered in pitch, Hiashi began to fall backwards and Hinata saw that his eyes had combusted in their sockets, thick milky strands connecting her palms to the mess leaking from the punctures in his skull. It was a grisly sight, one she never thought she'd see her premiere father reduced to, but as his body thudded to the ground, she lifted her odious hands up to eye-level...and smirked.

"You thought I was worthless...that I never learned anything…." Her voice was of a dove's again, soft and cooed out, even as she extended a tongue to the muck on her hands. What assaulted her taste buds was acrid and made her stomach flip with an instant desire to vomit but she choked the urge and took a long lick, slurping almost, savoring this moment, the moment where one of the chains keeping her rooted in misery broke away….

"Is this what Neji-niisan was talking about?" asked Hanabi over her shoulder. She sounded calm and reserved, emotions that slightly surprised Hinata. "He told me he had been giving you extra lessons...was it for this?"

Now suckling on her index finger, lapping up any fluids with an almost animalistic thirst, Hinata nodded, keeping her gaze on the corpse of her father. It was a tribute to Neji's code of honor that this night had went off as well as it did as he most certainly could have stopped her, and quite easily. For the past five months he had trained her, drilled the Hyuuga's Jyuuken fighting style into her brain with a far more brutal touch than her father could have ever done; where her father only exerted half effort, Neji took his time and started from the beginning, running practice session after practice session, picking her up when he knocked her down, correcting her stance, helping her chakra flow more easily, lessing the strain of the Byakugan until activation was as easy as breathing.

Hinata had been honest with Neji, telling him the real reason why she sought him out for that special brand of training. She remembered crying...trembling...completely at wits end as she broke down before her cousin, her words damn near incomprehensible for all her sobbing and yet he heard them without missing a single syllable. She wanted to become stronger...she was sick of being looked down upon, of being thought inferior to everybody else, unworthy to even be looked at….

"_And what will you do with this...power, once I've trained you?_" he had asked then.

"_I'll kill your uncle."_

For a moment, she recalled Neji just observing her, his ever stoic expressing betraying not even a hint of emotion, neither surprise nor confusion. "_My uncle….Your father._"

"_The man who rules the Hyuuga clan is _not_ my father. He is a tyrant...one who rules with an unfit hand and stale ideals. For the sake of both the main branch and the cadet branch, he must be taken care of_…."

"_And what will you do after this impossible task is completed?"_ he had asked, speaking of such heresy with an unperturbed face."_What kind of life can you expect to lead after such a heinous crime? What will be left for you?"_

"_Nothing."_

A little voice just over her shoulder brought Hinata back to earth with a jolt. "He's...father's not moving anymore."

Hinata nodded, realizing she'd now sucked both her hands virtually spotless. "And with his stillness comes your freedom, Hanabi-chan."

"Freedom…?" She'd repeated the word like it was a foreign concept. "What is...freedom?"

Hinata's right ear twitched and she turned to her precious sister, enveloping her in a hug that spoke of all the feelings, all the words that she wished she could express vocally but couldn't. Despite the frigid blood coating her elegant robes, the hug was warm, secure, and Hanabi unconsciously sank into it, sighing contently into Hinata's neck as they embraced as sisters.

"You're leaving," Hanabi uttered after only a few seconds and now even she could hear the sounds of quickly approaching footsteps.

Hinata nodded, giving her sister one last comforting squeeze before holding her upright, hands on her shoulders. "Freedom is a foreign concept to you at the moment….It's something I don't fully grasp either but...right here, right now, I think I have an idea of the sensation, and it feels invigorating."

Without another word, Hinata prodded her sister in the forehead with her index finger, just a single poke, then dashed for the window on the opposite end of the room. Fixing her katana to a strand of robe at her side, Hinata pulled the curtains apart and leapt into a crouched position on the windowsill.

She glanced over her shoulder. "Hanabi!"

Just as the chamber doors were knocked sideways by a contingent of cadet branch members, Hinata flashed a soft smile. "Live your life your way!" she ordered and when her little sister vigorously nodded, she fell forward into the darkness of night.

**XXX**

The night was still young and yet Hinata only had one more stop to make before she could begin life anew. As she skipped over building tops, barely touching down before leaping again, she allowed herself a few precious seconds freedom to enjoy the wind as it splashed over her parched face; it froze the blood soaked into her robes, made her feels pounds heavier but she reveled in it, continuing to bound as though gravity didn't exist for her.

Like a blood drenched butterfly flitting through the air.

**XXX**

A/N: One down, two to go.


	2. Chapter 2

Blood Drenched Butterfly

Chapter 2: The Middle

**XXX**

Instinctually, she knew her window of opportunity was only going to be so big. They had already seen the culprit—she'd even made eye contact with a few of the cadet branch come to check on her father—so now it was essentially a race against the clock. It would take only a few minutes to move that man's corpse, mere seconds if they divvied up into two teams, one to handle the body and another to come find her.

_Would they kill me outright…?_ It was an idea that idly bounced in her skull. She saw it as her cousin Neji deemed it: an act of destiny. She was not cursed with the 'Caged Bird' seal...and it was due to that and her training that her plan had progressed as fas as it did. It was _meant_ to happen. Her suffering...the tears spilt...all of those were necessary for her to see that change had to come, and that _she_ had to be the one to bring it.

Not a single soul in her family was truly 'free'. The cadet branch were little more than slaves equipped with explosives set to go off at the slightest hint of wanting to move on their own, and the main branch was even more trapped, trapped in the past with their decrepit morals. They were family, and no part of their family was greater than the other. But now...thanks to her efforts, things would change. Undoubtedly, the death of her father was set to cause a seismic shift in the shinobi world as every country, both great and small, knew of the Hyuuga clan, nicknamed by their enemies 'The Eyes of Fire'. This night would be universally known by morning.

It was a fleeting dream that when her name was mentioned alongside his murder that some might see her methods as a necessary evil, something that needed to be done in order to bring about change and restore the long forgotten concept of freedom.

She touched down on a rooftop two blocks from her destination and waited.

Nothing.

_Alright then._

"Have you forgotten that I'm a Hyuuga? I know you've been following me since I left the manor," and she cut her eyes to the right, towards a tree with thick foliage that stretched up and over the building she stood on. "There are three of you. One real, and two bunshins. Did you _really_ think you could fool"—she switched speed mid sentence—"I'm insulted."

On her word, there were to dull popping sounds and wisps of smoke escaped into the air signaling the end of the doppelgängers. Hinata watched as a solitary figure stepped from the haze of leaves and onto the roof. Almost at once, Hinata's eyes widened but neither spoke a word, the whistling zephyrs sounding like a storm in the silence.

"So it's true, then. When Neji came to me those many months ago and told me about your sudden urge to train, to better yourself...I wondered why he delivered that joyous news with such a _dejected_ face, like it was something he deigned to do. I figured back then it was just his inbred hatred for the main branch and dismissed it. Everyday since, I watched you show up to our practice sessions, sometimes looking like you had just been dragged out of hell itself...but you kept it up, and so did we. None of us went easy, we kept pushing you. And why wouldn't we?"

The person looked up, their shaded glasses catching strokes of glorious moonlight as the corners of their mouth fell in the slightest of chastising frowns.

"We were teammates."

The words fell from Shino Aburame's lips like rocks where they thudded noisily in the silence that followed As she listened, Hinata lifted an arm, her misty eyes sighting a peculiar bug crawling just under the sleeve of her robe. As the mystery to how she had been found was cracked, she let the insect invade her peacefully then glanced up at Shino who stood there, hands comfortably in his pockets, exuding nothing but phlegmatic chakra.

He was...resolved. About what, she hadn't a clue. Not like it mattered. She was also resolved and nothing was going to get in her way.

"There's nothing you can say to sway me, Shino-kun," she told him softly. "I'm going to finish what I started regardless of the consequences."

To this, Shino merely inclined his head, a movement Hinata registered mentally before her eyes saw it; she was tensed in every sense of the word, prepared for whatever tactic the bug-nin might try.

"After coming this far, doing what you've done...there's nothing to reason over." His reply was casual. "I should have stopped you months ago, back when I first noticed your...change. But again, why would I? They were all _good _changes. You stopped stuttering, began to speak your mind more, you straightened that wonky little hunched-over posture of yours and began to walk upright, proudly, like someone might expect the heiress of a clan to." He pulled a hand from his pockets, the right one, and placed it over his chest. "But there was also change _here_. The warmth you used to so kindly show to everyone began to dim until it was no longer there...your smiles were cold, your laughs at Kiba's jokes—if you can call them that—were fake. I'm sorry to say I watched as the Hinata I once knew and cared for morphed into this—"

There came a little prick at the base of Hinata's elbow yet her face betrayed no hint of discomfort. Apparently his bug had ingested a touch of her chakra. As the pain subsided, she adopted a half-lidded expression, the rest of his words turning into a dull, weightless slur; her heart began to thud as a sudden revelation popped into her head and at first she wasn't all too sure whether it was her own thoughts or a byproduct of whatever toxin that bug carried.

"Shino-kun...you...what did you do to me?" she questioned through his rambling and she was slightly stunned when her words came out as a pant.

He was a smart boy and readily knew to what she was referring. "I just took in some of your chakra, for tracking purposes later." Cheeks flaring, she watched him push up his glasses. "I'm not sure where you're going or what you plan on doing but given the severity of what you've just done and the fact that I, as your former teammate, know some of your habits, I might be tasked with hunting you down in the near future. This just makes it easier."

Even though the night air swirled around them like a blanket of frost, those words ignited a fire just behind Hinata's chest and she felt her entire face burning. What was this...and why? She could feel the blood of her father dripping down her butterfly-print stockings and shivered; it was so cold, yet so….

Shino spoke again, pointing over her shoulder in the direction of the village front gates. "As one last act of kindness, go. You don't have much time before they—"

Hinata took only a single step yet she appeared in front of Shino and her heart delighted when his speech, usually so clear and sharp, faltered; they were essentially the same height except for a couple inches on his part. Still, it was no trouble for her eyes to find his, even when hidden behind those shades. Without a word, she gave the bridge of them a flick with her finger and it promptly snapped in two, the pieces clattered at their feet.

"All this time," she breathed, "you were watching me so intently?"

With his shades destroyed, the veil of mystery that perpetually surrounded Shino was shattered and she took in his eyes, flinching internally at how fierce his gaze was, and it slightly excited her to know he was far from the plane of glaring. This was his normal look, those slitted eyes belaying a ferocity that not even Kiba could muster up on his most piqued days.

"You were my teammate. Of course I watched you," he replied.

There was a certain roughness to his tone that hadn't been there before and she felt the hold on her katana slacken considerably, to the point where the tip touched ground. No one had ever said that before...that they had watched her...noticed all those different gears in her personality as they turned….Her throat was suddenly dry but she never broke eye contact, finding a certain security in his harsh gaze. He was chastising her with only a look, that much was certain, yet she found a twisted pleasure in it.

Someone was actually looking at _her_...and only her.

"What else…?" she questioned, all previous constraints of time thrown out the window in light of holding his stare for as long as possible. "What else did you notice about me? My...how I always tried so hard? M-my smile…? I—"

"Does it matter?" It was asked quietly, barely audible over the wind, yet Hinata heard it perfectly. And her heart sank. "I noticed a substantial amount about you, both as your teammate and as a man, but none of those observations are relevant, not anymore."

It was almost on the tip of her tongue to yell 'No!', to tell her everything he noticed about the Hyuuga heiress. She almost thirsted for such information but the look in his eyes...so cold...no...it really didn't matter now. Even if what he said did happen to tilt in the direction she hoped it would...what could become of it after tonight?

In her frayed mind she could see herself stretching up slightly, tilting her head back so as to plant a kiss born of terrible circumstance on his chin, just barely visible over the neck of his everyday jacket. She was rocked back to the present when something warm met her forehead, between her bangs, and only her eyes lifted, widening when she saw Shino giving her skin the warm caress of his lips.

"Take from that what you will," he muttered against her.

Hinata hadn't heard. She'd frozen...everything—her movement, her breathing, thought process—it all came to a grinding halt. 'Take from that what you will'...was that all? What was that supposed to…? Was that a 'Yes, I had feelings for you' type kiss, or a 'Friendly farewell forever' type…?

"Tell me," she spoke suddenly, her voice hoarse, the ends of her robes fluttering.

"You should get going, Hinata." He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the Hyugga estate, his expression static, not a flicker of care. "I attached some bugs to a lot of your cadet branch members on the assumption they'd come after you and it seems I was right to do so. They'll be here in—"

Exactly how long she had, Shino never got out. He was silenced when Hinata reached up, laying a hand over his cheek. In the center of all this wretched cold, her touch was the warmest thing he had ever experienced; the rest of his words died away into nothing along with his current train of thought. Hinata caught his reaction, however subtle, and felt her heart thud with renewed hope….

"Tell me," she commanded and her voice had taken a few steps back into the timid whisper of long ago, "tell me...that you hate me."

Even to her that question sounded more than a little strange, might even come off as crazy. Wanting someone to say that they hated you…? But Hinata had her reasons. She needed to hear that and was sure the desire gleamed in her pupil-less eyes. It would just make things so much more...easier, lay her doubts to rest knowing she was leaving nothing behind, that she had made the right choice, that her caged life couldn't have gotten any better—

"I can't."

Shino's response was quick despite her mental battle and she issued a sort of breathless laugh, disbelieving. "Then t-tell me you dislike me for my cowardice."

"You were never a coward, Hinata," he once again answered, on time to disperse any hint of deceit, "just held down by fate."

"Tell me you never thought of me as more than a friend!" she demanded, her voice growing.

"I can't."

Hinata faltered, settling down with a crestfallen face before bouncing up nearly onto her toes. She searched his eyes deeply hoping to see something—just a little sparkle even—that she could take as a lie. She saw only the same fierce determination as before; those slitted eyes betrayed no other meaning to his words.

Somehow, she managed to speak past the lump in her throat, her voice coming out cracked and hoarse. "P-please...don't do this to me."

"Do what?"

She ignored that as though not hearing it. "We…t-tell me we never...that we never could have been anything…."

"Given my background as heir to the Aburame clan and yours as heiress to the Hyuuga I'd say, even though yours is far more strict on such proceedings, we would have had a chance."

It was if a plug had been pulled. Everything drained out of Hinata at a nauseatingly quick pace until she was hollow, finally feeling the biting sting of the cold air swirling around them in the darkness. The corners of her mouth twitched up in a smile that held no humor, simply a husk of something joyous that might have been.

"So you loved me then."

Shino nodded. "Did, do, it's all the same, Hina—"

Hinata felt something blindingly bitter fill the spot in her heart twice trampled over. It brought a physical pain to her senses and an almost animalistic growl climbed up her throat. Her father had denied to give her love, to give her even the time of day...that had been the first drain...and now, Shino...he chose _now_ of all times to say that he...that he 'loved' her when there was absolutely no chance of exploring the feelings she had longed for….

Blood dripped to the rooftop, droplets collecting into a puddle.

"No, you don't...you don't _love_ me," she suddenly spat, twisting the blade she pushed steadily deeper into his midsection. She heard him gurgle on the fluids filling his throat, watched as his face, once so calm and unperturbed, morphed into a state of utter anguish. And that delighted her more than anything. "If you truly loved me...you would have said something sooner! You wouldn't have let me go through this—_through all of this_!"

In the back of her mind, she recognized the irony of telling someone else they should have spoken up when she herself had borderline stalked Naruto for many a year, never saying anything. But she ignored that. She was raging, screaming at the top of lungs in a tone that caused several lights from the apartments they stood atop of to flicker on, the patrons inside wondering just what sort of creature was both in the village and capable of such a noise.

She could feel the bugs that dwelled within Shino's shivering body buzz to life with an almost desperate urge to save their host; she twisted the blade the other way, felt them stutter, and lifted a hand, her palm swirling with an ominous blue charka.

"You saw me suffering! You say you loved me yet you watched me suffer day in and day out! You said nothing—_you never say anything_! Why are you always so quiet? You could have...if you'd just told me _sooner_ then—" She subsided into a roar of rage that caused many a bird to take flight and she struck him over the left pectoral, rupturing the skin and forcing as much chakra into his system as possible. She felt the bugs surging underneath shudder and then there was stillness….

"WHY?" she managed to cry out, tears beginning to blur her vision yet she could make him out perfectly, the way he managed to open one eye to stare at her, his lips, overflowing with blood, working to form words that would no doubt cause her further grief. "Why did you wait so long to tell me?"

Something heavy landed atop her head. It was his hand, feebly lifted then dropped, and she felt his fingers coursing through her dark blue hair. His lips parted in a violent cough that spattered her face with blood and it took him a few tries to get anything coherent out. "I waited...b-because I wanted to know whether you'd...whether you'd g-go right or left…." Blood was sliding from his nostrils, his breathing was growing shallow...and yet Hinata couldn't detect a single trace of anger in his tone, no sign of regret. "R-right...would have led to a happy life t...together. Left...I figured I'd d-die and that...my death would be your punishment...your cross to b-bear…."

And as he fell into her at a slump, Hinata felt his lips land next to her ear. "Your punishment...for being s-so stupid…." It was breathed out deliberately, meant to tickle her, to soothe Hinata even though it was the last breath in his body. The heartbeat weakly thudding against her died away with crushing force and she remained still even as Shino's corpse slid off her shoulder, off her blade, and thudded to the rooftop. Her eyes slowly lowered, siting the blood escaping the wound that had claimed his life; little black insects, long since dead from her chakra pulse, were being washed out….

She blinked.

The expression over Shino's face. Although saturated in scarlet streaks, that serene smile was hard to miss...he almost looked like he was sleeping.

And maybe he was.

No. He definitely was.

Something wet rolled down Hinata's left cheek. She didn't wipe it away, allowing more tracks of water to follow the elegant curve of her face and drip off her chin. Twice she almost lost it, her face scrunching up with a mad desire to scream her throat raw, but she held it in, turning instead to stare back towards her former home. She could feel a mass of chakra approaching. From the sheer scope she wagered on...seven cadet and two main members.

She flicked her sword at the ground to relieve it of blood, feeling her heart tear as she did so. At her feet lay the body of the boy who had always watched her from afar...waiting to see if her plans would lead to him, or self-destruction for both of them. She blinked, felt a fresh deluge of tears escape, and firmed her jaw.

The night was still young and there was still one last piece of business to take care of before she could rest. She spared Shino's body one more painful glance before ceasing all thought. A horde of stress-relievers were en route and she planned to give them her full undivided attention….

**XXX**

She was blind in her left eye, the end result of choosing whether to dodge a fatal attack or suffer a kunai to the face. It bled scarlet, pulsed relentlessly with an ungodly pain, and was covered by a ripped off strand of her robe in a style reminiscent of how Hatake Kakashi wore his headband. A little over an hour had passed since confronting and summarily dismembering the members of her clan on that rooftop. Hiashi's body had been found...the alarm had been risen...the entire village was ablaze with light...and almost every single ninja on duty was looking for the culprit. Shadowy figures flitted through the skies and skipped over rootfops, all of them...searching for her.

Forced to run an uncountable amount of search-and-destroy exercises throughout the village, training segments that more often than not left her out in the cold for many a night, Hinata probably had better knowledge of Konoha's backends than Naruto himself.

_Naruto…._

Even as she rushed through an alleyway, the tall walls on either side placing her in an undetectable darkness, Hinata could quite clearly see a visage of that laughing blonde in her mind. He was handsome...with a smile that made her heart stop. Whenever she saw him, regardless of whether he saw her, she always came to a screeching halt to take an almost obsessive peak into whatever he was doing. Because what he found interesting she made it a point to like as well.

But he never turned around. He never saw her watching, never noticed how someone was always cheering him on in competitions and during class exercises, he never thought twice about why she would sometimes bring an extra bento of food for him. At times, she figured he was just dense, happily oblivious, but as the days wore on she came to the conclusion that this boy was either being willfully ignorant, or he was _really_ that dumb. And if he was really that dumb she had to question what in the world drew her to him in the first place.

_He cheered for me during the Chunin exams_.

She took such rare praise and held it dear until she realized two days before seeking Neji out that that was just Naruto's way. He cheered for everybody...about anything….He was just the sort of person to bring other people up. It had never been anything special. At least not to him….

For someone who hailed from a clan with one of the most powerful eye-based kekkei genkai's in the known Shinobi world, she had been ridiculously blind. Terribly, horribly blind. While she had been watching Naruto...another had been watching her, taking note of all the subtle changes in her attitude….

As she peeked around the corner of a bakery shop, her only good eye strained to its limit by the Byakugan and zipping everywhere, the image she had of Naruto was overshadowed by one of Shino without his glasses on to hide the fact that he had always been watching her….

_Why didn't I ever look back…? That person I was looking for to be in my corner...he'd literally been in my corner…._

Seeking proper treatment for her eye was out of the question. Wrenching out the kunai emptied her stomach and even now she could feel a steady stream of warm fluids running down her cheeks, turned ice-cold by the night before it dripped off her chin. She couldn't feel her toes and her right arm was starting to tingle, which in turn rattled her katana.

_This is your punishment...for being so stupid._

His last words floated so soothingly through the wind and from her good eye dropped another tear, her bottom lip trembling, but she scrunched up her face and buried those feelings. Soon she would—

A ninja, Chunin-ranked from the look of him, dropped down from the sky itself at the alleyway's mouth and lifted a small flashlight, sweeping it left then right. He hadn't expected to find anything way over here, so close to that demonic brat's quarters, but his superior had ordered him to scout the sector. When his light washed over a girl no older than fourteen and clothed in a blood-drenched robe, he blinked. And in that blink he felt something blunt puncture a spot just to the left of his naval; it broke the skin easily and dug inside with a pain so pitched his eyes flew open. He tried to scream and the girl delivered an open-palm strike to his chin—he felt blood overfill his mouth as his teeth were violently knocked against one another, chipping and tearing into his gums—

It was almost instinctual, what Hinata felt herself doing to this poor man. She only remembered taking a single step and she was all over him, delivering a barrage of Jyuuken strokes that punched literal holes into him. She was not trying to stop his chakra flow at this point. She was trying to kill him, and three seconds later that task was complete and she stared down at his body hanging half out the alley. It looked perforated by a series of snake bites, feebly squirting thin stripes of blood. She glanced at her hands, so soaked with blood she feared it'd never come off, and then back to that nameless chunin's corpse.

He didn't look like he was sleeping. He didn't look peaceful. There was clear agony frozen onto his face and, unlike Shino who managed to look tranquil even in death, this guy's mouth was all sorts of messed up, teeth poking up through his top lip, his chewed tongue lolling out….

"Disgusting," she uttered dryly.

**XXX**

A/N: One more to go! Go, Hinata!


	3. Chapter 3

Blood Drenched Butterfly

Chapter 3: The End

A/N: Rest up, Hinata.

**XXX**

By the time Hinata stood outside the home of her final objective, she couldn't feel her right arm at all; it was beyond the point of numb now and a little voice in the back of her head, one that had been continuously whispering all the detrimental aspects of the night, told her it was dead. Such news didn't alarm the Hyuuga heiress...she could barely feel anything past the fire raging where her left eye used to be. The darkness from that side was beginning to overtake what little vision she had left. Her Byakugan was as dead as her arm, and not because she was lacking chakra, but because it was linked to her wellbeing. She almost cried when it flickered and then...nothing….

_It's alright,_ she told herself firmly. _It's not needed for this...I don't need it anymore. I won't need anything anymore after this…._

And she lifted her working arm, knocking twice on the worn door. The sound was hollow, a reverberation that Hinata could internally identify with. Her heart, once slowed as more bled crept from her body, started to pound when she heard the muffled sounds of shuffling from within followed by a fair bit of cursing as something was knocked over with a sharp _crash_.

The door snatched open and she stared into the grimacing face of Naruto Uzumaki who was slightly bent over, caressing his knee. His flyaway blonde hair, those passionate cerulean eyes that now gleamed discomfort, and those adorable whisker marks...all of it Hinata took in and only now, when everything had progressed far too deeply to fix, did she wonder why she ever thought him cute.

"Son of a gun! Stupid coffee ta—" he grumbled ruefully before looking up and predictably falling silent upon seeing who it was at his door. From the bottom to the top his eyes roamed, and his face slowly changed from one of annoyance to abstract horror. "He-H-Hinata-chan! What in the hell"—his nose crinkled with disgust and she could only assume it was from the tart stench of blood wafting off her—"_are you okay? _You...you're covered in blood! Are you hurt?"

Though there was panic and concern in his tone, she knew…she knew he wasn't asking like one might to their potential other; it was a friendly affair, and it churned her stomach with bile to know that all these days…months...years….

She didn't realize that he'd grabbed her until he was tugging her inside. She stumbled a bit but Naruto didn't seem to notice; he was busy shouting his throat raw and rattling off things he would need to staunch the blood flow. Hinata cracked a legitimate grin. 'Stop the blood flow?' No...you couldn't fix wounds of the heart with gauze and alcohol rub.

Naruto left her standing in the middle of what she could only assume was his...everything? This room was almost claustrophobically small, with a number of things crammed into it ranging from a sofa, to a beat mattress, a notched table, dozens of ramen cups strewn across the wooden floor—a case of goose flesh erupted over her body when she spotted a rat's nest of dirty clothes in one corner. He'd disappeared through a door almost directly in front of her, the most cramped bathroom she had ever seen in her life; there was only a toilet and sink, no tub of any sort.

She knew that the village hated him for reasons she still hadn't quite figured out but this—all of _this_—was just...inhumane.

"Damn, your eye...and your clothes—_just what are you wearing_?" Naruto had come bustling from the bathroom, if one could call it that, with his arms laden with all sorts of medical supplies, some of which Hinata had no clue the purpose of.

She barely heard his questions. Somewhere during that battle with her clan, she'd taken a palm strike to the temple and ever since then her hearing had been unstable, zoning in and out. She only caught 'your clothes' and glanced down, not at all surprised to find her once glorious ensemble the remnant of some brutal war, tattered and bloody with healthy amounts of her porcelain skin free to view.

He gripped her by the wrist in an effort at tugging her to the beat-up sofa but she snatched her arm back, a flicker of disgust cutting through her fatigued expression. His touch was like the lash of a whip on her flesh, sharp and painful. When he whirled around, still displaying that annoying look of confusion, she dropped her katana with a loud clatter that drew his eyes, which widened as though just noticing. Before he could voice further questions, she struck out with her good arm, curling her fingers around the back of his head and in one clean motion she snatched him forward until they were within spitting distance, their noses brushing.

She could smell ramen on his breath, beef flavored. Just what was it with his abnormal fixation over ramen in the first place? It was good, yeah, a quick meal if nothing else but there were far better—she growled in her throat. As her only admirer had said: does it matter? It was only senseless nitpicking of his character that should have been done a long time ago.

"Who—" she tried to begin but her eye throbbed with an unholy pain and she pitched forward, grunting when her mouth met Naruto's with a loud clack of teeth. Her stomach gave a 'warning' flip in accordance to the pain and it was only due to a prior emptying that kept her from spewing sick down his thr—

She gasped into his mouth. The medical supplies fell to the floor between them and his arms rose, clamping almost securely around her shivering figure. Her mind died when he not only straightened their crooked posture but began to bend her back slightly, the embrace between them sliding from accidental to purposeful.

Before her brain could even begin to process what was happening, Naruto pulled back with a jubilant smile, giving her blood-encrusted nose a little peck. He looked how she felt: breathless.

"_That's_ why you came over?" He had an arm around her back and ran the knuckles of his other hand over her cheek. His touch was so unbelievably gentle that the Hyuuga heiress forgot simple speech, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Naruto continued to smile warmly, a blush growing in his whiskered cheeks. "I'd...heh, I wondered how long we'd be able to last, y'know, watchin' each other from afar but not saying anything…."

Now Hinata found her voice, the pain of her eye forgotten while the other twitched. "What…? You...you watched me…?" Her heart jerked as though shocked back to life. "What do you mean by—"

"I didn't wanna say anything!" Naruto blurted out, lifting the hand of her dead arm and rubbing it soothingly over his cheek. She couldn't feel a damn thing and stared in bafflement. Just what was he…? No, _why_ was he…? "I'm sorry...I'm _so_ sorry…."

"S-sorry?" she croaked out, and she struggled to remember a time in which he'd brought her any kind of grief.

"I thought waiting would be _good_—for the both of us. It was in the back of my mind, every day of every month...that when I became Hokage? You...I'd come for your hand," he whispered and he leaned in, planting a kiss on Hinata's forehead that she never felt past the shock. "Every time I felt like givin' up or somethin' stupid like that I'd hear you, _your_ voice, just yellin' and yellin' for me to keep going. You were so quiet and yet so loud!" he laughed and his voice radiated with a warmth that heated the Hyuuga heiress' insides.

"So I decided," he continued, and he frowned somewhat after catching sight of the blood-soaked wrap covering her mutilated eye, "that I wouldn't say anything. I didn't deserve you...you, next in line to take over your fam's prestigious clan. There was no way in the world I could just run up like an idiot and say 'Hey, Hinata, wanna be with me?' So I took your words and tried to better myself, started to study, y'know, and damn was _that_ hard...but I wanted to approach you with some knowledge, you were worth it!"

There was so much wrong with Naruto's assumptions that it brought a tear to Hinata's eye and she sucked in her quivering bottom lip.

"But learnin' your chakra's specific elemental nature and thumbing through the twelfth volume of '_The Study of Algorithmic Chakra Expenditure_' wasn't enough—not for you, not for your smart-ass cousin, and not for your father"—she blanched but he ignored it—"I knew in order to feel like, well...like I deserved your smile, I wanted to _be_ something. And that's when it hit me! Hokage! If there's anyone who deserves anything, it's gotta be the Hokage—it's always been my dream anyway, to have the villagers finally notice me, so I figured this would be like killin' two birds with one stone! Become Hokage, the people here respect me, your clan sees I'm worth something, and then I'd take your hand and…."

He was laying kisses upon the back of her lifeless hand, his words slurring. She stared as his lips met her knuckles with an almost loving nuzzle. Could she feel it? No. Did she wish she could? As much as she wished she could go back in time. It was only when cold reality struck, forcing her to see that as nothing more than a child's wish, that the barricade she'd set up for this night came crashing down and she openly wept, her right eye leaking a stream of water.

Her sudden outburst caused Naruto to double-take, possibly expecting his words to be something akin to good news, and he opened his mouth to speak but she lifted her good hand and put a finger to his lips.

"Y-y-you l-loved mmm-m-me?" It was a struggle to get those words and, as with Shino, she prayed that he would say—

"I do!" he exclaimed. She looked stricken as he once again picked up her inert hand, cupping it within his own. "I'm gonna make myself better for this hand right here! I don't deserve you now but soon...so wait for me?"

_This is your punishment for being so stupid._

_For thinking no one was in your corner._

That second thought resonated with Shino's deep vocals and Hinata unconsciously reached for his signature whisker marks, her thumb running over them idly. They weren't really so stupid, she figured with a sniffle as Naruto seemingly melted into her hand, his eyes closing almost contently.

"You're so warm," he uttered absentmindedly.

_Warm. When I'm covered in the blood of my father...my clan mates...a chunin...and my…my..._She couldn't even finish the thought and instead produced a watery smile.

"Yes."

"Hm?" Naruto's eyes fluttered open again. "Yes? Yes what?"

"I'll wait for you."

The biggest, dopiest grin she had ever seen began to spread through his face, almost ear to ear. "You—_really_? You mean it?"

She nodded, crying on the inside. "On one condition."

"One...condition?" He blinked, confused, then instantly nodded. "Yeah, sure, whatever!"

Dear God, his happiness...it may as well have been his chakra incarnate, overflowing, abundant, infecting everyone and everything it touched. She could feel its warmth seeping into her...giving her the strength to do what she knew needed to be done.

"Wait for me till I get back," she whispered.

A look of intense relief flooded Naruto's face and it couldn't have been any clearer that he had been expecting something impossible; his alluring blue eyes lit up like diamonds at her easy request, then—and Hinata felt her heart skip—he adopted this adorably cute stumped expression.

"I can definitely, _definitely_ do that—been doin' it all this time—but...where are you going?"

"_Where you can't follow_."

And without another word, the Hyuuga Heiress snatched her hand back. In the same frame, she rammed her foot into his chest with such force his eyes nearly popped from their sockets as he flew in reverse, his back slamming up against the opposite wall. In two more frames, Hinata had seized her katana and flung it with all the strength she possessed, calling once more upon the power of her Byakugan to give her perfect aim.

She watched with a hollow stare as the blade punctured a spot just to the right of his abs, pinning him to the wall; she watched as unfathomable pain screwed up his face and he howled out; she watched trickles of blood seep over his bottom lip like scarlet wine; and then she turned away, staggering for the door—

"W-WAIT!" His sudden roar didn't so much as make her twitch. She kept walking, ignoring the hole punched into her heart. "Wait!" he called out, growling through the pain and she glanced over her shoulder to see him gripping the blade with both hands, seemingly oblivious to the gashes he sliced open on his fingers. "Y-you..._why_?"

"B-because you'd try to follow me...and you c-can't...not where I'm g-going," she smiled, blinking away tears. "So just...hang there and w-wait for m-me, okay?"

There must have been something peculiar hanging in her tone because for the briefest of seconds, the agony left Naruto's features and his jaw fell open, a mixture of blood and saliva escaping. They met eyes in that moment and Naruto gnashed his teeth, beginning to struggle.

"No—damn it, NO! Don't—whatever it is d-don't do it!" he screamed.

Hinata wiped her good eye with the back of her hand and turned, continuing to walk. "After watching y-you for so l-long I know it's hard for you to die of blood-loss, and I m-missed your vitals, but p-please...don't fight so much or y-you really will d-die…."

She pulled the front door open, a gust of freezing night air blowing her red-streaked hair and tattered robes about. It felt so good...so refreshing….

"H-HINATA! COME BACK—DON'T DO THIS!"

"Goodbye...Naruto."

And she closed the door on his cries.

**XXX**

She stood on the Hokage monument, atop the carved head of Hiruzen. In front of her were no less than fifty ninja, all of them with their faces hidden behind animal masks. Anbu. The best of the best. The hands of the Hokage. Trying outrun them would be like a mouse attempting to outstrip a hawk, and she idly found herself wondering which one, whether the hawk-masked anbu or the rat-masked one, was the fastest.

When she chuckled, something sharp grazed her cheek. She felt the skin there shudder and split with a dull pulse of pain.

"We've told you. You move, you die," said the hawk anbu. As he stood out in the front, she assumed him to be the leader. The calm timber of his tone bore no trace of fooling around; the next kunai he tossed would more than likely end her life.

_If I can call it that_. She'd been standing there for the better half of ten minutes. Apparently, they were waiting for the Hokage, Tsunade herself, to show up and proclaim sentence.

"Can I ask a question?" she wondered, beginning to waver.

"If you mean beside the one you just asked, you're allowed one," came her curt response.

Everything was dimming and Hinata felt beyond cold, as if the very blood in her veins were freezing, clotting, making it difficult to draw breath. She knew what that meant and felt relieved. Finally...no more pain.

"Will y-you send the Aburame clan m-my apologies?"

"Reason?"

"Because a precious bug has been lost tonight," she pushed out cryptically.

There was a silence as those close enough to hear processed her words. And then all at once, Hinata felt a blindingly strong upsurge of chakra.

"What...did...you..._do_?" questioned another anbu. Surprisingly, his chakra felt almost familiar to her, and after glancing at his beetle-esque mask she knew why.

Wordlessly, she lifted her good hand, sucking in air through her teeth when a kunai struck it dead center.

"We _told_ you not to move, Hinata!" yelled the hawk anbu. "That's your final warning! Move once more and—"

With a sickening 'squelch', the Hyuuga heiress chomped down on the kunai's end and wrenched it free, inviting a deluge of blood to pulse down her wrist. Before she could be punished, she took the weapon in her wounded hand, nearly bit her tongue off when she wrapped her fingers around it, and pressed the point to her throat.

"And w-what?" she questioned daringly, vision waning. "What m-makes you think I don't w-want to die…?"

No one answered. Not a single anbu stirred in the night.

"My apologies...w-will you give them to the Aburame clan?" she questioned again.

"Put the kunai down, Hinata-chan," came the voice of a woman wearing a jaguars mask. She was tactfully soft spoken, which let Hinata know their threats to kill her were bluffs. She wouldn't die by their hand. After what she did, her death needed to be made a public affair. "We can talk about this. There's no need t—"

Hinata pressed the metal into her flesh. Her vision whited with sparks and a choking groan issued from her throat that cut all other noise. She instantly lost control of her legs and almost buckled, remaining on her feet through sheer will, the same will that had kept her conscious for so long. She only needed it a little longer...just a bit….

"One of y-you...g-go...d-deliver my apologies," she ordered to any anbu close enough to hear her strained whisper. When none moved, she dug the kunai in deeper, her look of agony spurring the hawk anbu himself to take flight towards the Aburame estate. She would have told them herself, oh God she would have...but time didn't permit….

"He's going, Hinata-chan, he's going," said the woman anbu. She made slow pulling motions towards herself. "Now...drop the weapon, toss it over to me like a good girl."

"Good girl...n-not me," and Hinata didn't give the anbu a chance to respond. She was through talking. Fatigue had claimed a good majority of her muscles and she was tired, longing for rest. "Time to sleep."

Almost before she could finish speaking there came a great movement as the multitude of anbu leapt as one collective force—but it didn't matter. She dug the kunai into her neck, only managing a couple inches depth before she lost all control of her body and began to tilt…

...tilt…

...falling...

She could feel the wind rushing by in speeds that nearly whipped the robe from her limp body. The gash in her throat she barely felt...her vision was fading fast, breathing in short ragged gasps….She wanted to laugh when a few anbu leapt over the edge in a futile attempt to save her but her voice was gone….

An instant before the world turned black, she caught sight of a lone crow...one with sharp red eyes. She heard it caw, and then her body knew warmth as though being enveloped in the hug she had always dreamed of.

_Naruto...wait for me…._

_Shino. _His mental image popped to the forefront of her dying mind as the ground lurched up to meet her. _I'll be with you soon._

_Goodbye_.

**The End**

**XXX**

A/N: (**Spoiler? Maybe?**)

Might as well say Hinata didn't die here because thoughts of a continuation began forming. It's unlikely it'll see the light of day so if anyone cared to know, that crow had something to do with it. Peace.


End file.
